A/N:
MDawn: Thank you for your lovely reviews! I'm glad to hear you are enjoying the story. Your comparison to Tolkien and his Lost Tales floored me. That's the best comparison a humble writer could wish for. Also I hope Sauron has "smartened up" to your satisfaction by now.
chisscientist: "Uphill battle" is the perfect term for what Tom does. He doesn't seem to mind, though. I think if there's anything he has in abundance, it's patience and good mood. Sauron definitely starts the story as a stubborn fool, but I'd like to think he has learned something at this point, the most important thing being that he is far from infallible—an unhealthy thought nurtured by being a Ring-maker and a Ring-lord for thousands of years which has definitely given him a false estimate of his powers.
This chapter was fun to write.
VII. Very Old Enemies
There were no things he appreciated about his new incarnate form, but least of all the liked the dreams. They were uncontrollable and wild, they followed no logic that could be grasped with the mind and if it was simply a higher kind of order that lay outside of the realm of normal comprehension, he had lost the ability to follow it.
He glimpsed visions of his own past, the faces of those he had met in his long life and of those he had killed, which were almost as many. For a long time he wandered his own desolate mind-scape: A street cutting through a barren wasteland under a red-and-black sky, down the road he had chosen which was paved with the bones of the ones who had fallen to Sauron. The further he went, the more numerous they became and the ground on both sides of the road opened to reveal dark chasms out of which half-rotten faces with white eyes followed his steps. They stretched their maimed and bloody hands out at him out of their graves and tried to get a hold of him, they crawled forth from their pits, grabbed his ankles, made him fall and piled themselves upon him like dogs, weighing him down, tearing and clawing until they had wrenched him to pieces. He heard their voices and their screams and the last of their echoes rang in his ears even after he awoke.
He got up from his bed slowly and looked out of the window looking out over Goldberry's back garden, waiting for his mind to calm. The fruit was ripening and hanging heavy from vines and trees and golden sunlight was reflected from the dark green leaves of tree, plant and bush. Slowly, the dream-shadows fell away, destroyed by the sunlight and the screams of the tortured and the damned changed to birdsong.
He turned and saw that there was new clothing laid out for him on a low table: a shirt the colour of the light washed-out greyish green of reeds in autumn and trousers that were slightly darker. He could not remember the last time he had worn green—he had carried a great many colours in his life, but green had never been among his chosen ones—but he deemed it better than the simple tunic with a few stains of dirt along the hems. There was little doubt that it was Goldberry's doing and while he was surprised that one day had been enough for her to make this, he had seen greater works being completed in less time. The clothing was light and felt partly like water, partly like soft grass when he pulled it on. It was foreign, but not as unpleasant as he had expected, although he missed the weight of something heavier around his shoulders and shoes on his feet.
Freshly dressed, he stood on the rush-strewn floor in the middle of the bedroom and pondered what to do next. The revelations of yesternight were coming back to him and the magnitude and multitude of what he had to do next towered like an insurmountable range of mountains before him. The consequences of failure had been shown to him clearly enough in his dreams. It was enough to drive any sane being out of its mind, for there was too much to do (among them the near-impossible) and too little time to weigh his options and choose a course of action. Many would easily have given in to panic or rushed forward without thinking so as not to lose any time, but he did not see how losing one's head was any better.
Therefore, he refused to let the future overwhelm him, for the future was just that and nothing more. At present, he was still safe and sound and he did not see that changing for a few days at least. There was still time, if not much, and he would not rush things if he could help it.
One thing after another, he thought, and then, funnily enough he thought of Hobbits and their famed common sense. What would a Hobbit do now in my place if he woke up facing a sunny day full of planning against his own annihilation in the near future? The answer took him less time to find than he expected, for really, there was only one thing he could imagine that a Hobbit would do: Probably eat a healthy breakfast. Second breakfast, judging by how high the sun is standing.
There were decidedly worse things to do and he had already noticed his present body was not inclined to do great thinking with an empty stomach. Removing an easy problem before putting his mind to the more difficult ones seemed sensible, therefore he exited his bedroom and walked down the corridor to the room with the wooden table and the fireplace.
The door was slightly ajar and to his surprise, he could hear voices coming from inside. One was the voice of Tom Bombadil. The other one he knew as well, and to hear it again, here of all places, was enough to almost make him take a step backwards, something he had done fewer times than he had fingers on his hands, even considering the missing finger on his right hand.
As it was, he remained where he was, thinking about what to do now. As he would not suffer a retreat to his room and Tom Bombadil would not approve of having his house set on fire to burn the unwelcome guest, he settled (albeit reluctantly) for a quiet entrance. He pushed the door open and the table came into view. Seated on on side was Tom Bombadil, a pipe in his hand and wearing a crown of leaves instead of his usual feathered hat. He was talking merrily to the guest who was seated at the other side of the table, clad entirely in white and smoking his own long and elegant pipe. A long staff was leaning in the corner of the far wall which had not been there in the days before.
Had he not heard the voice, he would have thought Saruman had crawled out of his hobbit-hole and come to share his pipe-weed with Tom. But clearly enough, it was another wizard who was sitting in Tom's house, the one whose meddling had nearly single-handedly brought about the fall of Barad-Dûr, no less. Secrecy and stealth, heirs and hobbits. He should have known.
"Why Olórin, you seem to have recovered well from your fall in Khazad-Dûm. That a Balrog would be enough to keep you from interfering and sticking your nose in other people's business was apparently too much to hope," he said.
Gandalf the White turned his head, took his pipe out of his mouth while he regarded him with a frown and then stood so abruptly that he would have hit his head if the ceiling had only been a bit lower.
"Tom Bombadil!" he said and his face was so thunderous, it would have sent an army of goblins running. "What is the meaning of this?"
Tom Bombadil looked quite unperturbed. "This is my guest, just like you. I would introduce you, but I'm afraid he has yet to find out who he is."
Gandalf gave a him a dark look from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "An introduction is very much unneeded. I know who this is. But who do you think you are, giving someone like him form and shelter? You are overstepping your boundaries!"
"I am within my own land," Tom replied and took a pull of his pipe. "My boundaries stretch from the edge of the Old Forest to the Barrow-downs. We are inside Tom Bombadil's land and there is no overstepping his boundaries, for he is master of the place and does as he pleases."
"Tom Bombadil, it is very clear that you are master of this place and you are lucky indeed, because had anyone else done the same, I would hit him over the head with my staff to rattle his brains back where they belong!" Gandalf said and his face was no less than frightening when he turned to look between Tom Bombadil and the one he knew as Sauron.
At last Gandalf faced Tom Bombadl again. "While Master Elrond and a great many others including myself were aware that you care little about what is going on outside of your valley, we assumed you were, if you were doing anything at all, working for the good in Middle-earth. But this? I still believe that you have not taken sudden leave of your sense of right and wrong, but you must explain why you are undoing everything the Free Peoples have worked toward for more than a thousand years!"
Tom Bombadil laughed and his face was crinkled and red like a ripe apple. "I am not undoing anything. You shall have your explanation, but first we shall have something to eat. Important matters are best left for after breakfast." He waved for them to sit down. "Stop fighting now and have a seat, both of you. We can eat and smoke and then we can discuss everything that needs to be discussed."
Gandalf's face still looked frightening, but he sat back down and all the while keeping a sharp eye on the newcomer when he walked over towards long end of the table, as far from the wizard and Tom Bombadil as the table would allow.
"If Olórin can be convinced to behave civilly, I will deign to stay," he said with a mocking graciousness that made the wizard's brows furrow further. He sat down and inclined his head to Gandalf in feigned courtesy. "You look different than the last time I met you."
Gandalf took a puff of his pipe. "If you are talking about the time when we drove you out of Dol Guldur with your tail between your legs like the cowardly hound you are, then the answer is yes. I have since assumed Saruman's position and colour. He seemed busy enough betraying Rohan and talking to a Palantír. I relieved him of some of his duties." The wizard threw him a withering glare from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
"Which enabled you to smoke pipe-weed while you were sending Hobbits and Men around like pawns on a chessboard. Yes, I can see why you would like to be Gandalf the White." He filled himself a cup of tea.
"Do you want to accuse me of cowardice when it was you who hid his formless being in a tower for the better part of an Age?" Gandalf asked.
"You know as well as me that my confinement to Barad-Dûr was involuntary. If I had had a choice in the matter, it would have been my pleasure to meet you on the battlefield, believe me—one one one, for that matter, not five on one like back when you broke into my fortress. But the War of the Ring is over and I am neither willing nor able to fight you," he said. "As regretful as it is, we will have to settle for drinking tea and hurling insults at each other."
Gandalf huffed angrily and shook his head. "I shall be very curious to hear what you were thinking when you gave him back physical form, Tom. The One Ring was bad enough a manifestation of this scoundrel, but at least it had no mouth to talk with."
When Tom merely chuckled and Gandalf returned to smoking his pipe, he spoke up again. "Well," he said, "I must say I am disappointed in your new appearance, too. Where did you leave your grey cloak? And your wizard's hat? I miss it sorely on you."
Gandalf threw him a side-glance. "The lack of wizarding hats on my head is more than made up for by you of all beings wearing a flower necklace, I dare say."
Their eyes met and Gandalf raised his eyebrows as if waiting for an answer. Then the wizard apparently choked on the smoke of his pipe and turned away, huffing and puffing and meeting no one's eyes for quite a while.
They finished their breakfast in silence and only spoke when Goldberry came in to bring them clear water from the burbling stream and strew the floor with fresh rushes. Afterwards Gandalf and Tom first wanted to talk about something which involved Hobbits (again) and the wizard wished no one else (and Sauron especially) to listen to it, so he was politely pulled outside into the garden by Goldberry where she set herself to work on the pumpkins, while he watched her sitting on a small wooden bench.
He listened to her humming and watched her work with swift and deft hands for a while, then he said, "The magic Tom and you have been doing to restore me is remarkable."
Goldberry righted herself and smiled. "There is little secrecy to healing when one knows the illness."
"True enough." He plucked a wilted flower from the rose vine and rolled it between his fingers, the brown petals coming apart with the motion. "Although I am still surprised that someone except the Eldest would know of the Deep Magic in the world and be able to invoke it."
"Tom is the oldest and fatherless. He was here before the first Dark Lord came from Outside and he was here before the first magic was done," Goldberry replied. "He watched it grow and become twisted, then shaking off its shadow and fading. He remembers the Time before Light and Darkness and he remembers the old powers be born and come into the world. They heed his call because he is older than all of them."
Sauron frowned. "Very old then."
Goldberry nodded and smiled.
"Who is he?"
"He is Tom Bombadil."
He narrowed his eyes. "You keep saying that. But why won't you give me the other answer?"
Goldberry stood and walked over to him. "Because there is none. He is what he is. Tom Bombadil is all he ever was and will be. Just like a tree is at its very heart a tree, no matter whether you call it willow or oak, fir or spruce. Those are names, but a tree is what it is and remains. Tom Bombadil is the only true way to describe him and the only true answer to your question."
He rested his chin on his hand, all the while looking at her. "I know only one truly old and fatherless being and I doubt he would be hopping around on meadows and singing silly songs."
The smile Goldberry gave him was friendly, but in a strange way unsettling. "I would not know," she said.
"Good, then what is he? He effortlessly brought me back to life and I am no longer foolish enough to fall for the skipping and silly songs. He has power. Everything here heeds his call."
Again, Goldberry shook her head. "He does not have power. He is."
"He has power," he snarled, annoyed with her incessant repeating. "It is impossible to use power over something else without having it in the first place."
"He is," she said again and sat down next to him.
He wanted to say something, then thought better of it and breathed out. "If you say so. Stick to your plays on words and keep talking in riddles for all I care."
Again, she laughed. "This is no riddle. This is how it is."
"I am merely surprised that someone who can raise a dark spirit back to life without much effort and whose words are enough to keep Barrow-wights out of his land and split old, evil trees in the middle would not try to expand his dominion." He plucked a wilted rose from a wooden arch next to him and rolled it between his fingers until the brown petals came apart in his hand.
"Tom has no interest in the lands outside. They are not his," Goldberry said. "He does not care for power and ruling, and even if he wanted to, he cannot be master of anything but his own land."
He thought about this for a while. "Is this why I cannot leave the valley without returning to a mote? Because what power he has is bound to this place?"
"Bound is the wrong word, because it implies forcefulness and imprisonment. There is no force here and there are no fences and walls to keep anything inside, just like the lilies around your neck are a necklace and no chain. Both are bonds, something which holds and forms a closed circle, but a chain imprisons while this necklace does not," Goldberry said, reached over and touched the lilies around his neck, now returned to white bloom. "But yes, Tom Bombadil does not leave his valley, or at least only briefly, and he always returns. So do the trees and the animals, the spirits and you wanted to leave the valley, you would have to be strong enough to remain whole without his magic, otherwise you would fade again."
"I see." His lips drew up in a wry smirk. "I must say I am astounded that it obviously took so long for a wizard to show up here. I cannot imagine what other outrageous things he usually does before dinner when he is not resurrecting Dark Lords, but I am surprised that none of the Valar have appeared on his doorstep to stop it."
"The gods from Outside do not come here, because it is not their land," Goldberry said.
"If course it is, the entire world is theirs," he said, then he stopped himself in his words.
Goldberry just looked at him, that friendly and inexplicably discomforting smile on her lips. He looked back, wordless and motionless. There was something nagging inside him, just like in the past when he had been skirting at the edge of a great discovery or crucial realisation—
It was in this moment that Gandalf the White rounded the corner of the house and saw them sitting on the bench. His white, straight staff was in his hands, but he was not leaning on it for support. His strides were long and sure and his face was set in a grim expression that lightened a bit when he approached Goldberry.
"Lady Goldberry, might I interrupt? I need to have a word or two with your guest."
Goldberry stood, tall and slender as a reed and pale like the first grass after a rain in spring. "I can see you are in a hurry. Your step is sure but your face speaks of unrest. I would not dream to keep you from soothing your unease. Talk as long as like and walk the gardens while you do, they are at their most beautiful in autumn!"
"Very kind of you," the wizard said. Then he turned and nudged his staff against the namely guest's shin none too gently. "Come, quick. I have a lot to do and I would like to say that there are more urgent matters I must attend to, but as it is I must resolve this mystery Tom has put before me before I can turn my eyes on something else."
He batted the staff away and stood so he was eye to eye with the wizard. "Your manners, at least, have not changed at all, Olórin or Gandalf or whatever you like to call yourself, and your impatience has no equal among gods and mortals."
"I will not discuss politeness with someone who considered it good manners to throw his enemies into the cells of Barad-Dûr," the wizard grumbled. "Up now, we don't have all day."
Both gave each other a disgruntled glare, then they walked through the garden, out of the gate in the wooden fence around Tom's house and in the direction of the meadows. Gandalf waited until they were well out of earshot before he spoke.
"I talked to Tom about what has happened and I must say his reasoning for bringing you back is not very convincing," Gandalf said, using more force than necessary to set his staff down and as a result stabbing its end into the soft ground with every step.
"And that reasoning would be?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Gandalf's own eyebrows were furrowed. "None that I can discern. He talked about you being able to learn something important, but there is an old hobbit-saying about—"
"Not hobbits again!"
"—about an old dog being unable to learn new tricks. And I don't see what those tricks would be for, either. You have done more than enough to earn your place in a shadowed non-existence. But Tom Bombadil doesn't seem to share this opinion. In fact, he doesn't seem to have given this much thought at all, as far as I can see. Judging from what I know of him, he might just have been bored. He cares little about Middle-earth, but I thought he would stop at disinterest and not go as far as to openly oppose the forces that govern it."
"So he is not part of those forces?" He stopped in his tracks and the wizard, clearly surprised by his sudden halt, did as well. Gandalf turned around and gave him a measuring look.
"I cannot without lying say that I know anything about Tom Bombadil. He is a mystery and he is surprisingly resistant to being unravelled. What I can say about him is that he did not align himself with anyone up until now and he certainly won't make a habit of it in the future. He is a queer creature, but because he has shown little interest for the outside world, the outside world in turn showed little interest in him, dismissing him as an oddity—curious, but unimportant. But now I am thinking that we might have made a mistake in overlooking him."
Gandalf gave him a glare. "He seems to believe that you can be reformed or remade—I did not understand his exact purpose and I don't believe he did, either. I am less than inclined to agree with him. You are a scourge of this world and you have rejected every chance at redemption you might have had with a laugh."
He snorted. "If you still think me a menace, why don't you destroy me here and now, Gandalf the White?" he asked mockingly. "Or does that staff have no other use than to spur your pawns with hits on the heels?"
"Would that I could," Gandalf said. "But I cannot undo Tom Bombadil's magic in his own lands, just as much as I cannot interfere with his intentions while we are here."
This admission of the White Wizard made him frown. "You cannot?"
But Gandalf obviously did not want to elaborate on it. "Be that as it may, I have been sent back to guard and protect Middle-earth. I cannot leave and go West before my duty is fulfilled. For all intents and purposes, it should have been over the moment Gollum fell into the fires of Orodruin and the Ring-bearer was rescued from its slopes. But now I come here and see Sauron sauntering into Tom Bombadils dining room and having breakfast at his table! It is obvious that my task is not yet over. I am still a guardian of Middle-earth and as such I have to decide what is to be done with you."
The wizard's eyes landed on him and his stare was boring and had he been a lesser being, he would have shrunken from it. Instead, he held his ground. "And what are you going to do?" he scoffed. "Lurk around the borders of Tom Bombadil's realm and roast me as soon as I set a toe over the border?"
The look in Gandalf's face spoke very plainly that the wizard would have very much liked to do just that. "You have few things speaking in your favour, least of all your own past, Sauron. Tom Bombadil seems to think that you are no longer a threat. I do not agree with him. I would not be so foolish as to extend trust and forgiveness to you after all you have done."
"I will live. It's not your trust and your forgiveness that I want."
"Truly, you are unchanged," the wizard said. "Even when all of your thrones and fortresses lay in ruin you remain prideful and unrepentant."
"I am merely telling the truth. I am sorry if my honesty insults you. Would you rather I'd craft a comfortable lie to ease your mind?"
"No," Gandalf said, "I would rather have you tell me why I should not tell the emissaries of the West the very same you have told me and watch them purge you from the face of the world." The wizard clasped his staff and for a moment, the anger made way for something else that almost looked like sadness and in this moment, he looked truly old. "Do you not repent anything?" he asked.
Instead of answering with a flat "No", he chose to give the question some honest thought. Gandalf was not his friend, but his inquiry merited some consideration, if only because the wizard had for thousands of years been the greatest and most persevering of Sauron's enemies, which had earned him his respect if nothing else.
"I do not regret the ends I saw in my plans,"he said slowly. "But I would choose different means to bring them about, could I do it one more time."
"And I will do everything in my power to see that there is not another chance for you," Gandalf said and gone was the moment of sadness. The wizard straightened and he was back to his powerful, self with a face set in stone.
"Who says I will ever leave the valley?" He held up his hands with a wry smile. "Maybe I will just stay here and be content to wear flower-necklaces and watch birds forever; until the end of time or until the world cracks apart, whatever happens first."
"You will not stay, I know you too well for that." Gandalf said. "And even if it were so, Tom Bombadil told me enough about you to know that 'forever' is no longer an argument which you can wield with any meaning. This problem will be solved soon enough and I will only stay long enough to see that you can do no harm before that happens. You can do nothing and fade, or you will take a step forward and face judgement for what you have done. This time, you cannot hide in a hole and wait for the storm to pass. You will have to make a decision sooner or later or the world will make it for you, and I will be here to see the end of it."
He did not answer. He could not deny the truth of the wizard's words. Time was passing. The world was turning. And the time of his doom, for good or bad, was drawing near, as inevitable as the rise and set of the sun.
Submission or annihilation? What will it be?
"Leave me alone," he said finally, turning away to look over to where Old Man Willow's split ruin stood, one half of his trunk bent over the Withywindle, while the other was bent over the short grass on the shore. "As you yourself said, I have a decision to make, but I cannot think when an old man keeps rambling next to me."
He almost waited for the wizard to say something more, scolding and reprimanding as he seemed so inclined to do, but all he heard was a low huff and the retreating steps when Gandalf made his way back to Tom Bombadil's house.
It was evenfall and the sky was already turning purple and violet with the brightest stars appearing like silver dots above, when Tom Bombadil found him. He was sitting on the ground, leaning against the trunk of Old Man Willow, lost in thought and numb from sitting still for so long.
"Aren't you cold out here?" Tom Bombadil asked. "There is a fire and warm honeyed-milk waiting for you at home."
"Waiting at your home is also a wizard I cannot stand," he answered, speaking to Tom's yellow boot in his field of vision. "I find I prefer the quiet out here."
"Ah yes. The valley is quiet when the spirits aren't getting up to mischief. And quiet is good for thinking."
He raised his head and saw Tom looking out over the valley with a joyous pride. Mist was beginning to creep over the meadows which were grey now instead of the green the daylight illuminated them with. Crickets were clittering under the trees and in the bushes and fireflies rose from the grass to dance once more before winter came and put them to sleep. The grass under was growing cool and wet with dew.
"You did a lot of thinking for today," Tom said, suddenly looking back at him. "Is there an end to the long yarn of ideas you are spinning or anything remarkable you found out?"
"Quite. I think I solved two great enigmas today."
"Is that so?" Tom sat down on a root next to him and pulled out his pipe. "Which would be?"
"The first? How I will go on from here." He twirled a long thin twig of the willow between his fingers that had fallen off during his and Tom's fight.
Tom stuffed his pipe and put it into his mouth. "Ah, that is a useful revelation indeed. What did you find out?"
He inclined his head to one side, pondering his words for a few moments and then snapped the twigs between his fingers. "I need three things before I can leave this valley: A name and a purpose to build a new Self, and protection. I found a purpose already, but I still need a name so I don't fade and protection against the Valar, at least for a few years. As chance has it, the wizard sitting in your house can provide me with both."
"So you will leave?" Tom took a puff of his pipe and blew it into the blue evening air. "And then what do you want to do? What is the purpose did you find for yourself?"
He told the little man and afterwards, Tom Bombadil seemed genuinely surprised for the first time he could remember.
"That is an unusual plan if I have ever heard one."
"Not as unusual as you would make me believe," he said with a smirk. "In fact, it was you who first brought it to my mind."
"Old Tom gave you the idea?" Tom Bombadil let his pipe sink.
Fireflies were rising around them, in a weaving peacefully between bushes and the branches of trees and illuminating the night with a thousand little suns.
They were both looking at each other.
"Yes," he said at last. "That's the second riddle I solved. I talked to Goldberry this morning. I did not understand at first what the answer was when I asked who or what you were. I always thought you were master of this valley in the sense of a king ruling over his land. Then I thought you were something akin to a god of this land, seeing how unlimited your might was within your boundaries. But that is not the answer, is it? You are not something of this valley…" His voice trailed off, his eyes on Tom Bombadil's face, his expression a questioning one.
Tom Bombadil's mouth grew into a broad smile. "Who would have thought!" he exclaimed. "You really are smarter than you made me believe the night when you tried to crawl up the Barrow-downs."
His wanted to reply, but his feeling of triumph faded a bit when he wondered briefly whether Tom Bombadil had just praised or insulted him.
"You are worse than the wizard. He, at least, is honest with his insults and doesn't disguise them as backhanded compliments," he said.
"It was not intended as an insult. I was merely doubting your willingness to learn and you must agree that I was right at that time." Tom Bombadil wagged his finger admonishingly then put his pipe back into his mouth.
"That was Sauron at the time," he replied drily. "He was headed down the same abyss his master had gone down before him, blinded by madness and forsaking what could have been greatness for power. I was able to avoid that, but even without madness clouding my judgement, some truths are harder to accept than others. Your truth is unbelievable even when it is the only answer left that makes sense. Also, we never had any reason to think there was more than one, it is in the name after all..." He interrupted himself. "But there is one thing I do not understand: Why restrict yourself to a valley? Why not a country, a continent … a world?"
Tom Bombadil smiled. "There are those who seek their destiny among the stars. And there are those who are content with a home, a house and a lady to bring flowers to. Gods and men and elves and all things come in all sizes and shapes, what makes you think it is different for us?"
The way Tom Bombadil said it made him shudder against his will. A thought of something greater than himself brushed his mind, gone before he could get more of a glimpse and he suddenly understood, he saw that there were many. They were countless, more than grains of sand on a beach; some of them as small as a marble others as big as… The image grew and grew and he saw dimensions even he could no longer comprehend, and with it came a weight that seemed to press down on his head, heavier and heavier—and at last his mind flinched back from the greatness it could not comprehend, lest madness would pull him under.
It took him less than the blink of an eye to regain his bearings. He smiled wrily. "Truly, Gandalf was right when he said that they were wrong to ignore you. There is not telling what would happen if they found out what was sitting in the midst of their precious world. And I am surprised the Valar did not object to your presence."
"Why would they object to me being here?" Tom shrugged and blew a smoke-ring into the now softly violet air. The grass was cold and wet with dew. "They mind their lands, I mind myself. Everything else being equal, I have not done anything to offend them. They are content to let me be. I occupy little enough space and I do not meddle with their world."
"I hope you are right. I have every intention to stop meddling with this world," he said, "but I am not yet sure that will be enough for them to leave me alone."
They stayed at the Withywindle for a little longer, then they returned to the house where Goldberry was weaving a basket out of reeds, while Gandalf was sitting on a bench in front of the house, smoking his own pipe.
He wasted no time in stepping up to the wizard and stopped before him, and started talking before Gandalf could say something.
"I have made my decision."
Gandalf raised his brows. "Well?"
"I have come to understand that the options presented before me are limited."
"An astoundingly astute observation and the first reasonable thing I have heard you say in the Three Ages of this world," Gandalf said, looking up at him from under his eyebrows. "Six, if you count the ones before the First Reckoning began."
"You speak rather grandly," he replied drily," for someone who managed to overlook a Great Ring lying right under his nose for decades. A little humility would suit you as well."
Gandalf harrumphed. "I was not the one who tried to rise above my assigned place. I know my role in the great workings and I'd thank you if you did not question it."
"And I would thank you if you let me finish speaking. As I said, my options are limited. I have considered all of them and I have made my decision."
"Which is?" Gandalf watched him intently.
"I will leave this world," he said. "And I don't expect to return."
Had he not been entirely serious, he would have laughed at the wizard's face. His eyebrows went up and his pipe almost fell out of the corner of his mouth.
He smirked contemptuously."Do you want me to bring you your staff for support? You look like you might fall over, did you try to stand."
Gandalf sputtered then coughed one time very deliberately and stood. "Leave this world? After you spent Three Ages trying to wreck it?"
"Wrecking it, as you so impolitely put it, has never been my intention for Middle-earth. But I don't expect you to understand that."
Gandalf made a low noise of disbelief. "Well, firstly, you had a rather odd way of caring for Middle-earth, if that was what you intended by laying waste to great parts of it. Secondly, indeed I do not presume to know what is going on in your head, if there is anything at all worth mentioning in the first place. So you intend to leave. And why is that?"
"You know of my intentions, but I intend to speak of my reasons to no one except one being, and I intend to meet him at the Gates of Morning in the Far East of the world." He stood tall and proud, a dark silhouette against the purpling evening sky, with the stars lighting up over his head.
"Who?" Gandalf asked and his gaze wandered from Tom Bombadil who was shifting his weight back and forth from his heels onto his toes and back.
The being who had once been Sauron smirked, his lips drawing up in a wolfish display of what was half amusement and half some sort of vaguely hidden disdain. "As chance has it, I cannot reach him on my own, otherwise I would not tell you this. I need your help for an undertaking, Olórin, and seeing how it will end with me gone from this world I think you will be more than willing to provide it. I need you to relay a message for me. I want to talk to our Father."
Two more chapters to go. The next update should be there around the 23rd of May. Thanks to everyone who stayed with the story so far and a special thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, favourited and speculated along. Your participation made writing this truly rewarding.
For now I'd like to ask you readers: Did you, like Sauron, manage to figure it out? Who or what is Tom Bombadil? The first one to guess correctly may commission a oneshot with main characters and prompt of their choice.